Colorado men's basketball: Dinwiddie leads Buffs past Gauchos

Boyle not happy with effort in CU's fifth straight win

Even if the Colorado basketball players wanted to enjoy Thursday's 76-68 win against UC Santa Barbara, they couldn't.

Head coach Tad Boyle wouldn't let them.

"We got practice at 8 a.m. (on Friday), so whether we like it or not, it don't really matter," junior point guard Spencer Dinwiddie said, referring to Boyle changing up the schedule in response to the effort Thursday night. "As long as (Boyle) don't like it and we've got practice, I don't think anybody's happy."

Dinwiddie scored a season-high 24 points to help the Buffs get the win at Coors Events Center, but the performance against the short-handed Gauchos (2-2) did not sit well with the Buffaloes (5-1).

"What I don't want is, I don't want our players to have a sense of entitlement," Boyle said after the Buffs won their fifth in a row. "I don't want our players to feel like they can just show up and play like this and it's OK. We have to get better and the way we get better is practicing."

Boyle recalled the Buffs' experience with The Program, a two-day event in late September run by former Navy SEALs. For the past two years, the Buffs have gone through The Program, with the intent of it improving their mental toughness as much as anything else.

Advertisement

"What The Program taught me, and I think the Navy SEALs hit it right on the head, you do not rise to the occasion; you fall back to your level of preparation," Boyle said during a postgame press conference coated in disappointment. "Our guys think that they can rise to the occasion. What happens is they fall back to their level of preparation. We fall back to how we prepare in practice, and if that's not good enough, that's on me, because that's my job as a coach.

"We have guys in that locker room thinking they can rise to the occasion. That doesn't happen. That's what The Program taught me. I'm not sure it taught our guys. Maybe what's going to teach them is somebody coming in here and hanging an L on us, which if we play like we did today is going to happen on Sunday (against Harvard)."

Boyle did credit UCSB, which came into Boulder and, despite playing without its best player, gave the Buffs all they could handle. Center Alan Williams, who is averaging 24 points and 13 rebounds per game, missed his second straight game because of back spasms.

Nevertheless, the Gauchos made 50 percent of their shots, including 53.3 percent after intermission. They were 11-of-28 from 3-point range and never let Colorado run away with the game.

Taran Brown, a sophomore from Gillette, Wyo., had a career-high 23 points, nailing 7-of-10 shots from beyond the arc. His final 3, with 5 minutes, 50 seconds to go, gave the Gauchos a 54-52 lead.

Instead, the Buffs responded to Brown's final 3 by going on a 12-0 run that included a big 3-pointer by Booker. That run gave CU its biggest lead of the game, 64-54.

"We rebounded and we got some stops in that little stretch, which is always good," Booker said.

UCSB hung around during the final minutes, but fortunately for the Buffs, they connected on 14 of 16 free throws down the stretch. Dinwiddie was 14-of-15 from the line on the night, including 9-of-10 in the final four minutes.

"I live at the line," Dinwiddie said. "That's kind of what I've been doing the past two years. That's how I'm supposed to shoot, really. I'm mad I missed the one."

Boyle was just glad he had Dinwiddie on Thursday. His star point guard was more assertive on offense than he's been all year and carried the Buffaloes to the win.

"We don't win that game without Spencer Dinwiddie tonight," Boyle said. "He was terrific. He was aggressive, he was dialed in. He did what he had to do to get our team the victory."

It wasn't long after the final horn that the focus turned to Friday morning. The Buffs don't usually have a hard practice the day after the game, but Boyle said the schedule the past few weeks has "been a players' schedule."

"Maybe I'm getting too soft as a coach," he said. "We've got to get better. It's not about Harvard on Sunday. It's about Colorado getting better tomorrow morning, and that's what we're going to do."

Colorado did what it needed to do to get a victory. The Buffs out-rebounded UCSB 34-25, produced 12 steals, drained 28 of 36 free throws and got out of the gym with a fifth consecutive victory.

What went wrong

The Buffs' defense gave up too many outside shots, as UCSB connected on 11 of 28 shots from 3-point range and hit 50 percent of their overall shots from the floor (26-of-52). That allowed the Gauchos to keep it close all night.

Star of the game

Spencer Dinwiddie. The junior point guard scored a season-high 24 points, including hitting 14 of his 15 free throw attempts. He also had no turnovers in 35 minutes on the floor.

Article Comments

We reserve the right to remove any comment that violates our ground rules, is spammy, NSFW, defamatory, rude, reckless to the community, etc.

We expect everyone to be respectful of other commenters. It's fine to have differences of opinion, but there's no need to act like a jerk.

Use your own words (don't copy and paste from elsewhere), be honest and don't pretend to be someone (or something) you're not.

Our commenting section is self-policing, so if you see a comment that violates our ground rules, flag it (mouse over to the far right of the commenter's name until you see the flag symbol and click that), then we'll review it.

Boulder is pretty good at producing rock bands, and by "rock," we mean the in-your-face, guitar-heavy, leather-clad variety — you know, the good kind. For a prime example, look no farther than BANDITS. Full Story